Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday April 04, 2012 @02:14AM
from the have-a-book-grzegorz dept.

rekrutacja writes "Today the Polish government started a Digital School pilot program, which includes distributing e-textbooks. This came after a years-long effort by the Open Education Coalition and its members to persuade policy makers, that Open Educational Resources are the future of education. The last few months have been especially eventful, as the free textbooks part of the program was dropped by the Ministry of Education and reinstated again by the Prime Minister Office."

These kids are going to be totally left behind by the daily innovations in basic math and Algebra with their static etexts. Why, quite often Algebra Science is stood on its ear by decisions of the courts. Just a few years ago Alabama sought to upset Euclid and legislate that Pi was exactly equal to three [snopes.com]. There's no way these tablets can be kept current with modern jurisprudence.

And then there's the Hubble constant, which we all know gets edited every year to re-explain the observations.

Or maybe you could just not be such a freaking retard. The above text (in case you didn't know) is sarcasm. That I have to call that out makes me want to (not talk to) you all. You may insert into (not talk to) whatever remediation technologies you prefer, as long as they involve acid, ballistic weapons, or a freaking flamethrower.

For those that didn't follow the link (and perhaps the link poster), from the link:

Origins: This wonderful bit of creative writing began circulating on the Internet in April 1998. Written by Mark Boslough as an April Fool's parody on legislative and school board attacks on evolution in New Mexico, the author took real statements from New Mexican legislators and school board members supporting creationism and recast them into a fictional account detailing how Alabama legislators had passed a law calling for the value of pi to be set to the "Biblical value" of 3.0.

No, you I might want to talk to. It's the rest of these idiots that bore me. I'm really tired of the/. astroturf brigade, and the defenders against such.
The Hubble constant. Let's start there. Share your thoughts. Myself, I think it's less a constant than a function, and we look at it as a constant because we have a limited temporal view.

The Indiana Pi Bill is the popular name for bill #246 of the 1897 sitting of the Indiana General Assembly, one of the most famous attempts to establish scientific truth by legislative fiat. Despite that name, the main result claimed by the bill is a method to square the circle, rather than to establish a certain value for the mathematical constant (pi), the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. However, the bill does contain text that appears to dictate various incorrect values of , such as 3.2 (when 3.1 is closer, with = 3.14159265...).

The bill never became law, due to the intervention of a mathematics professor who happened to be present in the legislature

There may actually be sound reasons to legislatively set Pi to a rounded constant. One that comes to mind: Many property lines are defined along a circular arc (mine is). Pi is arguably too precise for property law, lest people might argue about a tree impeding a nanometer over their property line. Rounding it would settle those disputes. Of course, such a ruling wouldn't be broadly desirable outside that particular niche... and there are other aspects of property law that attempt to address this, such as s

Pi is only needed in calculating the area and circumference, though; if your property is circular, you can simply measure the distance from the defined center point to determine if something is included, and pi isn't needed there at all. Thus, legislating a different value for pi for that purpose would be useless.

The problem is that without rules on how properties are divided, they can be defined in arbitrary ways. Vague definitions are cause for disputes. Overly precise definitions based on constants such Pi are also vague. With Pi, you must, practically, round. If your property is explicitly framed in the context of Pi and your neighbor plans bushes in your yard because he estimated Pi as 22/7... do you bring it to a judge and argue precision?

It is a silly thought experiment with few practical applications. I don'

There's the thing: your property isn't defined in terms of pi. If your property is defined in terms of a circle, or some segment of a circle, then it's defined in terms of a center point and a radius. *You never need to know the value of pi at all in order to determine whether or not something is on your property.*
You only need to use pi if, for some reason, you need to know the perimeter or area or your property. It has nothing to do with defining what is and isn't part of your property. Thus, your n

Agreed... I think very few things actually change in the specific fields represented in the K-12 curriculum. As far as I can see, the only potential changes are (some) of the following:

* A new, easier-to-learn methodology to run through a particular type of mathematics.

* A significant, confirmed change in history, or perhaps removal of the bias already existing in history texts (such as the fact that Paul Revere was one of three riders and actually quite lazy - history class should teach history, not legends).

* Changes to grammatical rules (the whole "Lists and a comma before 'and' thing" - for example: it used to be "Jim, John, and Lisa" but apparently it is now supposed to be "Jim, John and Lisa" for... some reason. I think it's idiotic as the first one better represents how one would actually say the sentence, though.)

* Changes to specific tools in the curriculum. For instance, drafting isn't taught much in high school anymore, but AutoCAD is. Cursive is often being dropped in favor of typing. You rarely will see a shop class using a hand drill over a power drill. etc.

* New requirements for education that add new subjects to the curriculum, although what currently exists is pretty well-rounded.

I think you could take a full set of school books from 20 years ago and they'd be almost identical to the ones used today.

the whole "Lists and a comma before 'and' thing" - for example: it used to be "Jim, John, and Lisa" but apparently it is now supposed to be "Jim, John and Lisa" for... some reason.

As far as I know, English has no such "grammatical rule" - not only this seems to be more about orthography than about grammar, English also doesn't have a governing body the way that, e.g., French does. To claim that there are "rules for grammar" does not seem to make sense, then. And whatever "it is now supposed to be" is supposed to mean, the newest edition of CMoS (section 6.18) still recommends it, while other guides still don't recommend it. I.e., the new anarchy is the same as the old one.

Towards the end of elementary school for me (so around 1999-2000), this was introduced by my teachers vis-a-vis their English department. It was never brought up in high school as far as I know. Yes, the "rules" for English grammar are very schizophrenic to say the least.

Changes to grammatical rules (the whole "Lists and a comma before 'and' thing" - for example: it used to be "Jim, John, and Lisa" but apparently it is now supposed to be "Jim, John and Lisa" for... some reason. I think it's idiotic as the first one better represents how one would actually say the sentence, though.)

Any such rule would be the style of a particular institution. There is no such rule of English grammar. Partly because ( as K. S. Kyosuke points out) because there's no legislative body for English, but that wouldn't be enough; it would still be considered wrong to, use' arbitrary~ punctuation! all` over [{] the place or fail to put a major stop at the end of a sentence

More significant is that there is absolutely no consensus over the Oxford comma. Some current style guides mandate it, some forbid it, and a

* Changes to grammatical rules (the whole "Lists and a comma before 'and' thing" - for example: it used to be "Jim, John, and Lisa" but apparently it is now supposed to be "Jim, John and Lisa" for... some reason. I think it's idiotic as the first one better represents how one would actually say the sentence, though.)

It depends who you ask.

The second comma in your example is called the Oxford Comma, and made big news a while ago as Oxford was considering dropping it from their recommendations of style.

In the US, different standard manuals of style have different recommendations. The Chicago Manual, for instance, recommends using the Oxford comma, whereas the AP Manual does not. (Or maybe it's the other way around. It's been a while since I edited professionally.) I've always preferred it, though had been taught

The India government is looking to deliver K-12 education to a half billion kids in the next decade, if they can get Android tablets at $40 each. I wish them luck. Right now the price point is $128 for a 7" tablet. The education is, of course, free - thanks to the diligent work of Michael Hart (may he rest in peace!)

Android tablets are going for under $90 new on ebay (average price for 7" tablet appears to be £55). However combine something like the Raspberry Pi with the plastic eink display by LG that Slashdot was covering a couple of days ago and I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to halve that. Forward-wind into the future where those printable solar cells could be put on the back of the eReader to make them totally self-powered and we have the perfect educational delivery device for developing countries. It takes time to build up a library of good quality content so it makes sense to start now. In a few years when the library catalogue has filled out then technology might have caught up at the same time.

I imagine India's desire for mass distribution makes eBay prices irrelevant.
However, if you want to work with me on producing the product you described, perhaps we could sell it to the Indian government, and retire by 2020.

Lovely knee jerk there. Textbooks are incredibly expensive in the free market for reasons that have nothing to do with publishing or pedagogy. Lobbying, marketing, market inefficiencies, and faux pedagogy all come to mind.

If you think that free textbooks for kids is what bankrupted Greece then you are being naive. This has been standard practice even before Greece joined the EU and is a direct follow-up of the Greek constitution. Oh, and you might want to look up on how this systems works in Greece before posting further comments.

For the record, I agree with you on taxes and spending. You just have to apply this concept to sections of the budget like "military spending" and "Olympics 2004". And don't get me started on corruption, bad management and the like...

free textbooks are the norm around europe. there was a recession when I was a kid and we had to use books that were used already, but still, before the highschool equivalent stage the state pays the books, which makes sense since you're required to get schooled anyhow.

I went to school in the United States and I don't remember ever having to pay for textbooks for grades K-12, either. You gave them back at the end of the term, so most classes handed out used books.

When I first saw this story, my initial reaction was, "Oh no, are they making elementary school kids pay for books somewhere?" I can just imagine what it would be like to teach a class in American schools where half the kids don't even have a copy of the book.

Personally I think it would be more efficient to give each kid an $80 kindle or tablet, which can be used their whole school life, and use free textbooks [ck-12.org]. Then maybe have those families that can afford it pay back the cost (which would only need to be $7 per year). Apparently the current method isn't working since we are paying for prisons and welfare anyway.

I went to school in the United States and gave my books back at the end of the year, and yet I paid a textbook rental fee every year. Every kid was given a copy; those that "couldn't" afford it were on welfare, which paid the fee for them.

Well there are many problems - like tax collection, corruption etc. However spending is also one. Especially if you've already lost most of your money through failing collection, corruption etc.

Of course it's desirable that everyone has access to education, but that can't simply be legislated - a way must be found to finance it as well. What Poland is doing there seems a like an excellent approach to achieve that goal. eReaders are in the affordable range already, and will become even cheaper in the futur

yeah since they are available as CC-BY with sources that means any readerfrom the site with the books http://wolnelektury.pl/PDF to printEPUB for an e-book readerMOBI for KindleTXT for advanced usageandSource of the bookSource XML fileBook on Editor's PlatformMix this book

Free textbooks are the norm in Europe, we have a strange system where textbooks that are mass printed for education are cheaper than regular textbooks, and educational systems negotiate a discount and get it...

Unlike the Free Market system in the USA where the manufacturers make specific books for Education, unsuited to the requirements of the curriculum, massively overcharge for them, and make sure they change from year to year so new ones have to be purchased...

Most of these textbooks will be printed out anyway so the "problem" of small e-book readers is a non-existing one.
The whole project is more about a free and open access to knowledge.
Electronic gadgets in Polish schools are not welcome - they turn children attention from what the teacher is saying.

lock down an e-book reader to the point where you can't even make a fucking annotation and you'll take almost all the play value out, especially if it's a budget-basement one that doesn't even make noises. how aggravating, but probably necessary since kids are easily distracted by flashing lights. (STILL works on me)

Give it a try, it isn't as bad as one would imagine. You can increase the text size, and the fact that you have to "turn the page" more times becomes unnoticeable, especially to kids who have had less time using larger sized books.

'Rekrutacja' guy is in reality Jarosaw Lipszyc, which is also author of wikipedia article about the subject, is mentioned as the guy proposing entire programme to the government and seems to be the 'owner' of the foundation itself. It is official 'charity' foundation registered in Poland, so it is eligible for 1% tax donation - and we still have till 30th of April to decide where 1% of our tax goes to.

April is month where charity organizations in Poland fight for their lives. While I applaud the idea of fre

That is so true! I feel really bad because now you exposed all my dirty secrets. I lobbied governement all those years to accept this program exactly yesterday, because i want to advertise on Slashdot, and win all those 1% donations. I will use this money for champagne, caviar and orbital trips. I'm also a member of Majestic 12, and work for New World Order, for full disclosure:-)

The books have been "free" for the students in the sense that they did not have to pay directly for them, but the schools certainly paid a lot for them, and because of copyright restrictions altering the material or reusing parts of it has been a minefield, with publishers having grown increasingly litigious over the last years. The initiative provides the books free in both senses (free beer and free speech) to the schools so they only pay for the actual costs they incur for distribution - almost nothing f

My daughter, sixth grade, can get to a few of her textbooks online right now. It would be nice if they offered them in a non-proprietary format to load them on her Kindle. Sounds like the Polish Government is onto something here.

0.01$ Polish people I know are very unhappy about their government; they say it the worst one after communism was overthrown; they have also had a lot of bitter remarks about public education. (Actually some people in Poland are on hunger strike now protesting against the removal of history lessons.) So this "free" stuff looks like the goverment is trying to improve their PR.